Thunderbird will not connect to Yahoo pop email - "Unable to login at server. Probably wrong configuration, username or password."
Running Win 10 (22H2) and Thunderbird 102.5.0 (32 bit).
Adding Yahoo to email, POP server. Using recommended server configurations. When clicked on DONE, a popup browser from Yahoo occurs with username filled in, then asks to prove not a robot (captcha), then asks for password. Finally agree for Thunderbird to access Yahoo email. Goes to check login and after some time presents the message "Unable to login at server. Probably wrong configuration, username or password." Repeated attemps goes through the cycle of the popup from Yahoo to give Thunderbird access to Yahoo email.
An email is sent by Yahoo indicating a sign in on Thunderbird. Clicked on Advanced settings to save settings. When click on Get Messages the Yahoo popup appears the give Thunderbird access to Yahoo email. This is repeated every time for Get Messages. Email at Yahoo says sign on Thunderbird has accurred.
No messages are ever dowloaded to Thunderbird. Yahoo seems to know an attempt was made to sign on to Yahoo with Thunderbird but Yahoo does not accept credentials to download the emails to Thunderbird.
What other settings need to be checked to make this work.
All Replies (5)
Yahoo requires a different password when using an email client. This URL may assist: https://help.yahoo.com/kb/SLN15241.html
As the image shows this feature (Generate App password) is not available at present.
I really don't see the need for this as the images for setting up a Yahoo email suggest.
Yahoo email clearly gets the message that an attemp has been made to access Yahoo email via Thunderbird but Thunderbird itself does not appear to be able to access the emails on Yahoo and download them to Thunderbird.
A bit more info.
Up until 11 Nov I was able to get Yahoo mail on Thunderbird.
I had to change my password and then the problem started. Just changing the password in Thunderbird did not work. I deleted the Yahoo access account in Thunderbird and then tried to add it back in Thunderbird. No luck so far.
Yahoo requires that you use oauth authentication method (or jump through a lot of hoops) and that has requirements that cookies be enabled. I would guess you are encountering issues with the oauth.
This article on automatic google account conversions offers some information of oauth issues that equally apply regardless of the provider involved. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/automatic-conversion-google-mail-accounts-oauth20
Thank you for your reply.
1. Since Thunderbird access the Mozilla database for Yahoo settings, it has always selected the oauth authentication method whenever I try to add a Yahoo account to Thunderbird. So this is not an issue with either the account settings or the SMTP server settings.
2. The accept all cookies has always been selected.
3. The javascript.enabled has always been enabled.
Some observations.
1. The oauth token in the passwords list is NEVER created ie oauth://login.yahoo.com is NOT present. 2. On another computer I installed Thunderbird (64 bit) for the first time and was able to add my Yahoo mail account. This points to a problem with the Thunderbird installation on my laptop which is the 32 bit version. 3. I installed the 64 bit version of Thunderbird (on a different drive) on the laptop but still could not add my Yahoo mail account to Thunderbird - same problem as before.
I was thinking of deleting all copies of Thunderbird and starting again but I have 5 email accounts in Thunderbird and don't want to loose the emails it contains - 5 years worth.
Any other suggestions? Is there a Thunderbird configuration or registry entry that needs to be fixed?